People using happy emojis might seem cheerful — but the subtext could reveal their more emo tendencies. 

A new study published in Frontiers in Psychology revealed that people use emojis to hide how they really feel just as much as they use them to express themselves.

Researchers from The University of Tokyo in Japan wanted to investigate whether display rules — “socially appropriate facial expressions in a given situation” — existed in communications with emojis and how emotion management with emojis is linked to psychological well-being. 

The study saw about 1,289 volunteers from Japan using emojis in response to online conversations. The participants, who were mostly female and aged 11 to 26, self-reported the intensity of emotional expressions.

The mostly Gen-Z participants had all regularly used Japan’s most popular emoji keyboard, Simeji.

The online chats had various contexts depending on the target of use, emotional value, and private or public settings.

Results suggested that happy emojis were often being used to mask negative emotions and “manage the expression” to make a message seem more positive.

More negative emojis, such as any of the sad face emojis, were only used when the participant felt very strong negative feelings.

Experts found that people were most likely to use positive emojis when they’re feeling negative emotions or when talking to people of higher status — but they were also less likely to express emotions through emojis toward this group of people.

People were more likely to use accurate emojis to express their feelings when talking to close friends.

They also found that using emojis to express emotions was associated with subjective well-being while managing emotions with emojis was “weakly associated” with symptoms of depression.

“As online socializing becomes more prevalent, people have become accustomed to embellishing their expressions and scrutinizing the appropriateness of their communication,” Moyu Liu, an emotional behavior expert at the University of Tokyo who led the research, said.

“However, I realized that this may lead us to lose touch with our authentic emotions.”

The researchers likened using smiling emojis when someone feels down to receiving an unsatisfactory gift and pretending they like it.

“In other words, people may downplay the intensity of their expressions when disclosing negative affect and use smiling emojis instead to socially decorate their expressions,” they wrote in the study.

Liu expressed concern that the increased frequency of socializing online will lead people to become more detached from their true feelings.

“Future research should explore potential gender differences in emoji display rules and examine the structural issues surrounding the formation of these emotion cultures,” she said.

Researchers also said that further research would need to be conducted in other countries to see if emojis are used differently around the world.

Gen Z has previously marked some seemingly positive emojis as “hostile,” showing a difference in emoji usage between generations.

They recently ruled the thumbs-up emoji as “rude” after a Reddit user confessed to being “not adult enough to be comfortable with the thumbs-up emoji reaction” — and others agreed.

A recent survey suggested that people between the ages of 16 and 29 believe that people are “officially old” if they use certain emojis, including thumbs-up, red heart, “OK hand” and a checkmark.

Along with the thumbs-up emoji, the crying-with-laughter emoji and the slight-smile face are some that Gen Z wants people to stop using. They find the slight-smile face “slightly passive-aggressive” and “highly performative.”

While some emojis can be looked at as passive-aggressive, others have developed sexual innuendos. The eggplant, peach, water droplets and devil smiley face all have sexual connotations and shouldn’t be used out of context.